I had what turned out to be a very busy weekend. The taste was fun. M&G turned up a little late, but not disastrously so, and we ate our fill of delicious mini portions of various foods. Between Luke and I, we had beef momo (Indian dumplings), jerk pork, a chicken kabob, and a barbecued pork sandwich, flourless chocolate cake with raspberry sauce, and key lime pie. M&G took Nigel along with them and within the first twenty minutes of being there, we encountered no fewer than two pugs and a tiny wiener dog. Nigel loved the other pugs and got to spend time with a tiny fawn named Charlotte and a 3 year old with hip dysplasia going by Pikachu.

As soon as we walked in the door from being with M&G, we noticed a message on our machine and it was Andy, so we went over to his place and had dinner at Red Robin. It was, for me, an Andy hat trick. There was very little going on at his place that night and he had been expecting a friend who lives in Milwaukee to stop over at some point, but she never called. I guess he called her the next day and asked what was up and she said that she had been sick. Still don�t think she should have just left him hanging like that; you should call even when plans are tentative, just to let your acquaintance know that he or she doesn�t have to wait around for you.

Monday we went and did laundry. C called twice from school complaining about something, but I was serendipitously far enough from the phone that I didn�t have to answer it. I�m really enjoying this C-less existence. I find myself far less tense at M&G�s now that he�s gone. M&G hired a dog walker and he and his wife brought over two of their three dogs. One was a Doberman, clearly too large to play with Nigel in any real capacity; it would be like a rabbit playing with a horse, but they also had a Shih Tzu, so he seemed to really enjoy her company. After they got through their initial skittishness, they started chasing one another around and pouncing at each other. I don�t know how I feel about the guy, though. I mean he chose to name his dog after a German general and that�s kind of scary. That, and he mistook Luke and I for brother and sister. No, it�s not the first time it�s happened, since we have the same general skin tone, blue eyes, and similar colored hair, though mine is much redder, but it�s irritating. Brothers and sisters don�t act as we do around one another, though that someone would get that vibe is disconcerting. We came home and used our unspent $20 to get pizza for Luke and a sub for me. It was a good night, and cold! I watched the news yesterday just for the low temperature. I�m a silly girl, I know.

Yesterday we lounged around the house in our pajamas and cleaned the shower curtain liner. I got a little upset for some completely strange reason and was bothered that what I had in mind for the day originally didn�t involve cleaning shower curtains and wrestling on the floor with the TV on. I got over it fairly quickly and we later hung out with Andy again and had dinner. I�m starting to feel badly about all the dinners Andy is buying me lately; last night makes three in four nights and he hasn�t said a word about it. Though, I think that a dinner is a small price to pay for leaving transparent headed thumbtacks on the floor for guests to step on, which I most certainly did. Plus, Luke had food to take for lunch today and I have leftovers too, so there�s extra food in the house.

When we got home, we installed the stuff we�d downloaded, burned pictures to a CD for a coworker of Luke�s who is leaving next week, and went to bed. We had sex for the first time in a week and it wasn�t as bad as I thought it would be. I�m not saying that the sex would potentially be bad, but I�m pretty resilient in the southern hemisphere and stretching after a hiatus is imminent. There is occasionally pain to be had and there was a little at first, but not so bad as it could have been. I�m glad that we had an extra day together, even if it was devoid of all the hot sex I had planned on. Most of the time, I was just too tired and, early on, I was still recovering from the Hatfield and McCoy situation in my crotch. I had to give time to pick up the dead and hold funerals, let alone for the itching to stop.

I spoke with my brother for a little bit last night on the way to dinner. I had the misfortune of his father answering and sounding very oddly happy to hear from me. Of course, he seems to have blocked out everything that he put me through in the time that he and my biological mother were married and is always glowingly enthused about speaking with me. I try to remain as stoic as I can, but it can be hard. I don�t want him to know how I�m doing; it�s not his right and it just makes me want to scream at him. My brother is doing well. I called him to wish him a happy junior year and he was very excited to hear from me. I wish I could have spoken to him for longer, but we arrived at the restaurant and I hate people who use cell phones while at dinner. Not only that, but he was getting hostile over something Luke said (which was not meant to be insulting in the slightest) and I didn�t want to deal with that. I think that he and Luke will get along much better in real life than they do with me as a telephone conduit. I think that Milo has the natural sister protection thing and I think Luke is harried by that, feeling that he gets enough of that thrown his way from my dad.

Unfortunately, Milo felt it necessary to give me an egg donor update, telling me that she�s married for the fourth time (to a cousin! Could she get more disgusting?) and going to BU. Talking about her gives me inevitable nightmares, so my sleep, though sound, was fraught with internal discord and I wouldn�t be surprised if I cried in my sleep. I can�t have pleasant dreams involving her; she�s always doing something terrible and causing unbelievable pain in some way or another. I can�t remember the specifics of the nightmares, but I do know that I was very upset throughout. I wonder if she�s told her new husband about her past and that not only has she birthed a teenage son, but a twenty-something daughter as well. She probably has mentioned me in passing, but has little to say otherwise, not having had an exchange in almost exactly 5 years (the 9th is the big anniversary) and not knowing who I am in the slightest. I doubt she�s told him why I don�t have a relationship, about how wretched a mother she really is. I just hope that she is beyond childbearing age at this point and doesn�t plan on raising more children in tumult. I heard a rumor of her being pregnant by a mystery lay soon after I took my leave of her, but thankfully, follow-up brought news of a miscarriage. I don�t mean to sound callous, but those words made me unbelievably happy. In between the two sets of news, I was a mess, worried that she was going to bring another life into the world, to later haunt its dreams and finding that something out there chose to flush out that cell cluster soothed my worries. I should mention to Milo that I really don�t want to talk about her when he and I speak. His and my relationship is independent of her existence and speaking of her only bothers me, deep under my skin. When it initially comes up, I�m not outwardly bothered by it, but dreams know better than I do what tears me up.